Category Archives: Accompaniment

Audacious Ignatius, Adopted

Five years ago this week, Audacious Ignatius was born.

With joy, gratitude, and lots of mailing tape, I packed up all these boxes on our kitchen counter and brought them to the local post office to share with folks who believed in the project from the moment we shared it on Kickstarter.  

And what a brilliant first five years it has been… What has made this project so rich is the partners and companions that generously lent feedback and enthusiasm to the effort of sharing the book.  

And so we are delighted that Audacious Ignatius has been adopted by Loyola Press, so that we can share the book more widely and efficiently.

Audacious Ignatius is now available at Loyola Press’ website and (for the first time!) on amazon.com.

Thanks, as always, for being a part of our books’ journeys.

Seeing as Though Our Life Depends on It

Everyone has someone with whom it is difficult to get along.

What if we were to live as though this person holds the key to some knowledge that our life depends on? What if we knew we would learn a crucial lesson if we could just quiet the story about them in our heads long enough to actually see them in their fullness?

I believe that our life together *does* depend on this type of seeing.

It’s time to get curious about that person and to learn something through the process.

The Final Freedom

Viktor Frankl named “the last of the human freedoms” as the ability “to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances… to choose one’s own way.” (Man’s Search For Meaning)

And, of course, he has serious authority.  This assertion was made as he reflected on his time in four different concentration camps.

His point is universally important and applicable: how we face the day is a deeply moral and creative act.  

Every moment offers us the possibility to change the story to be more constructive, more loving, more curious.

The Silent Request

I am rereading the remarkable Religious Potential of the Child, and was stopped short by this sentence which begins the third chapter.

“The adult who accepts the silent request of the child: “Help me to come closer to God by myself,” must choose the way to give the child the help [he or she] asks for.” (page 33)

Whoa!

And, I wonder if this is actually the silent request of all to show up in a given faith community.  

What would it mean to prioritize attentiveness to this longing?  How would the church change?

I think we would become like a network of spiritual directors, with individuals becoming deeply curious about the silent request of their neighbor and responding with excellence to it.

Each Day, Fresh Eyes

Our sons love this sunflower (below) that has sprung up just outside the fence of a community garden near our home.

Each day, they ask to check up on this flower (both to and from school) so they can see if it has changed.

I bored quickly of this game, until I realized that, once again, they were teaching me how to love.

They are ready, every day, to see this flower with fresh eyes.  

Similarly, we simply cannot love (a partner, a child, a plant) if we do not approach them with the same openness and freedom.  We are able to love only that which we can constantly discover anew.

The Examen Book Turns One

The Examen Book is turning one!  It’s a wonder how fast these kids grow up.  And what a way to celebrate the year… … a Loyola press webinar roundtable this week on the Examen prayer with three formidable interlocutors – Becky Eldridge, Jim Manney, and Fr. Mark Thibodeaux, SJ.  Here is the recording.  If youContinue reading “The Examen Book Turns One”

A Different Way Home

While riding home on our bike after dropping his brother off at school, our younger son turned to me and asked: “Can we take a different way home?”

I am programmed to optimize for efficiency (“Must find quickest route possible!”), often to the detriment of my quality of life. Our son was opting for something else, a new adventure.

Productive routines and healthy habits are great, as far as they go. But routines also limit what we experience and see. It can be enlightening to take a different way home.

The adventure our son eventually chose was to go give his mama a hug at work. Not a bad choice considering our true home is in the heart of a God who is love.

Slack in the System

It can be tempting to maximize every system to its limit.

To squeeze as much productivity out of our minds and bodies selves as possible…

To be satisfied only with the best (whatever it might be)…

To overanalyze every moment to make sure it is producing maximum pleasure…

To take from the earth without regard for ecological limits…

At some point, this is going to break down and we will bear the cost.

And this maximization mindset actually makes us unhappy, pounding our interior lives dangerously thin.

Keeping the slack in life’s systems is a worthy and indispensable discipline.

The Infinite Game

Yesterday, for an hour or so, I tossed a plastic stingray, lobster, and octopus onto the floor of the community pool for our 6 year old to swim down and return triumphantly.  He loves this game, and so does his younger brother who also took turns throwing the “sinkies” while splashing around in his floaties.  Continue reading “The Infinite Game”